The Refining of Silver
Have you ever been through a season of life where “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all?” seems to sum it up best? Every day is a fight, and by the time you fall into bed at night you feel bloodied and bruised, like you were in the ring getting pounded for twelve rounds by Muhammad Ali, generally considered the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. Ali ended his professional career with a record of 56 wins and only five losses, with three of those losses coming in his final four fights. Who can forget the 1975 “Thrilla in Manila,” the third and final fight against Joe Frazier, in which Ali won by a technical knockout to retain the heavyweight championship of the world. Ali’s professional career ended on December 11, 1981, with a unanimous decision loss to Trevor Berbick.
Everywhere you turn, you are swimming against the current. Maybe as you look out over the horizon of your life, all you see is barren wasteland. You feel parched and dry, no cool water is in sight, and you just haven’t seen any new green growth in a long long time. Or it could be that it feels like you are free falling and there is no safety net to catch you before you splat on the macadam below.
No matter how you choose to describe it, there are times when life just seems to be a constant uphill battle. You wonder where God is in all this. You wonder why He allows all this “bad” stuff to happen. The Bible calls us to praise God in all things (1 Ths 5:18; Eph 5:20), but you have a hard time finding anything to praise Him for. What can God possibly be doing? Has He forgotten you?
Let us turn to some words found in Psalm 66 that might shed some light on what God is doing in the midst of your ongoing struggles. In vv.10-12 of Psalm 66 we read, “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.”
The psalmist seems to be praising God for allowing so many bad things to happen to him. What’s up with that? The psalmist knows the truth of God using pain and suffering, hardships and struggles, to refine you into precious silver. Just maybe God is allowing what you seem to face on a daily basis so that He can re-tool and re-manufacture you into something beautiful. The verses from Psalm 66 tell us just that; “For you, God, tested us and refined us like silver.” And look once again at how that passage ends – “but you brought us to a place of abundance.”
The refining of silver, called smelting, involves heating the ore to its melting point of 1763 degrees Fahrenheit in order to separate the pure (base) metal from the impurities. God desires to do the same: often using the heat of life to purify us.
When life hems you in (prison), when pressures mount (burdens), when you’ve been unfairly treated (ride over you), and when one hardship comes one after another (fire and water), you can trust that you are never elsewhere than in God’s hand (see John 10:29).
Can you, even if you don’t feel it, praise God and thank Him for His unending love and faithfulness as He refines you like silver and prepares to bring you into a place of abundance?
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